Features

Disney found a somewhat soft spot for children’s films in the 2011 schedule to slot “The Lion King 3D,” and they came away with a healthy #1 take this weekend. Assuming you’re okay with that being added to the film’s already impressive overall take from the summer of 1994, it leap-frogs “Finding Nemo” to become […]

We find ourselves right in the middle of the big Toronto press junket, er, film festival, where 200-plus films are landing, many of them as world premieres, and the landscape of this year’s Oscar race is really beginning to take shape. As I looked out at the various films in play this year, it suddenly […]

I don’t pretend to be a box office expert, but I have to think five million for “Warrior” on opening weekend is a disaster for that film. What’s the ceiling when you start out there? It has to be low. Money was always going to be the difference for its Oscar chances. If it hit, […]

This morning’s interview with “Into the Abyss” director Werner Herzog represented my last Telluride communique (though I guess I was already home) from this year’s 38th annual festivities. Five days, 18 posts, nine movies and three interviews. It was a dense sprint to start the race, and now, with Venice still in-progress and Toronto set […]

Earlier in the week “The Help” crossed the $100 million dollar mark, but all eyes were on a potential third-straight weekend at the top of the box office chart. And, well, here we are. Bravo to Disney for finding a spread of time that could allow the film slide to this designation and surely become […]

Nathaniel Rogers tipped me off today to the fact that Jessica Chastain has won her first (of many?) award of the season in Venice. The prize, presented by “W.E.” director Madonna, was the Gucci Award for Women in Film. And it’s a pretty good pick when you consider how prolific she is this year. Chastain […]

At the end of the day, “The Help” could potentially be the #1 film at the box office for three straight weeks, a feat no film — not even “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” — could manage in 2011. That’s plenty of fuel for the upcoming Best Picture push. And though it […]

Welcome to Oscar Talk. In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty […]

The summer movie season has come to an end, and what an interesting season it was. We saw three billion-dollar grossers for the first time ever in one year, let alone one three-month spread (thank you, 3D). We saw a bit of a glass ceiling for comic book movies, proving nothing is a sure thing […]

So, “The Help” took the top spot at the box office in a rather thin weekend for new releases. But it’s the hold that matters, and this one clearly has staying power. Combined with the impact it’s having with Academy types, that makes a contender, folks, and you’ll see the film, Davis, Spencer and the […]

Okay, so now you know why I’m not usually charged with box-office pun duties. Come back to the five and dime, Chad Hartigan, Chad Hartigan, and so on. Still, it doesn’t take a prodigious number-cruncher — lucky, since I’m not one — to tell that this is quite a result for “The Help.” Even accounting […]

I haven’t yet had a chance to see the bestseller-based civil rights drama “The Help,” but I gather a lot of you have. The film — and more specifically, its first-class female ensemble — clearly hit the right note for Kris, though other reports I’m hearing suggest there’s far more to like about the film’s […]